2024 Will Take Off with a Boom by Shay

Blue Origin, SpaceX, and Dynetics are now committed to building a spacecraft with NASA to take humans back to the moon. These companies will design and create their prototype spacecraft using NASA's facilities competing for the spacecraft contract. NASA will help fund the design and prototypes so then they can test and evaluate the prototypes until they have their final design selection. The question is which one will be chosen to be the first company to land the next men and first women on the moon.

These three companies have big goals in mind. "SpaceX designs, manufactures, and launches advanced rockets and spacecraft. The company was founded in 2002 to revolutionize space technology, with the ultimate goal of enabling people to live on other planets." (SpaceX, 2020). The goal of their competitor Blue Origin is, "We're committed to building a road to space so our children can build the future." (Blue Origin 2020). Dynetics expresses excitement for the mission to send humans to the moon. They believe they have a "recipe for success" (Dynetics, 2020) for the challenges they have taken on. They all want success and development for all humans.

Each company provided and designed a lunar lander prototype for the 2024 landing and submitted it to NASA for them to evaluate. Dynetics received a rating of very good on both technical and managerial scores. Blue Origin received a rating of acceptable on their technical and very good on their managerial scores. Finally, SpaceX received numerous strengths on the spacecraft they built, their systems met or passed NASA's standards which made for very capable spacecraft design.

Although SpaceX's design was very flexible it had some risks. NASA identified a weakness in their production schedule and their development of the Falcon Heavy Rocket is noted to be behind schedule by a couple of years. SpaceX had another weakness in their notion of operations. They would have to use other spacecraft vehicles for example, tankers and a propellant depot to fuel their lunar lander. NASA identified very few weaknesses in Blue Origin's and Dynetics spacecraft aside from their propulsion systems.

These three companies will spend the next 10 months completing their designs with NASA engineers. NASA will then choose which of the three will send a spacecraft to the moon. All three of these companies will be trying their best and hardest. This explosive event to take place in 2024 will be something to keep your eye on.